Dolph bent down to look at the little boy and placed his finger against his lip. The little boy seemed startled at the sudden attention and went quiet, his small lip still quivering as he tried to catch his breath. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, Dolph wiped the snot that was running from the boy’s nose, then ruffled his hair and offered him a wax-wrapped piece of caramel before turning back to the boy’s mother.
The little boy remained silent, watching Dolph talk to his mother as he jawed at the candy. In the course of their conversation, Dolph promised the woman that someone would deliver laundry to be done from the Strega. They settled on a generous price, and he assured her he’d look into her husband’s whereabouts himself.
The whole time Dolph spoke to the boy’s mother, Esta couldn’t help but picture him shackled in a prison boat, heading toward the Brink.
She’d been six when Professor Lachlan first explained the Brink to her. Until then, she hadn’t understood they were trapped in the city. He’d taken her to the Brooklyn Bridge and told her about the Order. The farther they had walked along the bridge, the colder the summer day felt. Even before they came to the soaring arches of the towers, Esta had become so scared that she’d cried. Tourists eyed them both suspiciously as Professor Lachlan had picked her up and carried her back to where they’d started. If it had been terrifying to simply be close to the Brink, she couldn’t imagine the horror of crossing.
Dolph didn’t deserve that. No one did.
The morning wore on, with Esta pretending not to listen to the discussions Dolph had with one family after another. Each apartment was more cramped than the last, each family more desperate. Most of them had children who were wild to be outdoors but who clearly had affinities they couldn’t control yet. And without control, the children had to be kept hidden.
By the time it was past noon, the sun had burned away the hazy clouds and the air was teasing them with the promise of spring.
“You hungry?” Dolph asked.
“I could eat,” she told him as her stomach growled in response. She still didn’t understand what his purpose had been in taking her with him, showing her all he had.
She followed him back through the neighborhood. Despite relying on his cane, Dolph walked at a quick pace through the crowded streets. He had a way of moving that made his limp seem more like a strut. A confidence that fooled you into thinking there was nothing wrong with his leg.
When they came to Houston Street, Esta was surprised to see she recognized their destination. In her own time, Schimmel’s Bakery was on the other side of Houston, but when she stepped up into the tiny storefront, the smell of bread and onions wrapped around her and squeezed her with nostalgia. All at once, she was a small girl again, remembering the times Dakari had taken her out for a snack after their training session, an apology and reward all at once. ?And they’d often gone to Schimmel’s for a knish.
She let the memory of her other life wash over her for a moment. Dakari’s kind, crooked smile. Mari’s tart comebacks to every one of her complaints. Even Logan’s condescension. And Professor Lachlan . . . trusting her to get this job done, one way or another.
They were all unreachable to her. ?With the changes in the news clipping still tucked against her skin, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to reach them again.
In all her trips, all the jobs she had done, she had never felt so untethered from her own history, which she could only hope still lay somewhere, unreachable, in the future. Esta never wallowed, but she allowed herself a moment to miss it—the indoor plumbing and the speed of cars and the streets that weren’t filled with shit. And the people she cared about.
“What will you have?” Dolph asked, eyeing her as though he understood her mind had been elsewhere. But he didn’t call her on it and he didn’t press, and she found herself unspeakably grateful for that.
They took their order to go, shifting the warm, heavy pastries between their fingers to keep from being burned as they walked and ate.
It tasted the same, Esta thought. A hundred years, and the way the starchy filling of the knish melted in her mouth, dense and warm with just enough salt, took her right back to being ten years old. To the fall days when she would sit with Dakari on a bus bench, trying to eat the whole thing before it went cold as he reviewed the day’s lesson, her progress and her mistakes.
She’d been nearly eleven before she could finish a whole one on her own, but now, with her hunger gnawing at her, one didn’t seem nearly enough.
“Exactly how many languages do you know?” Dolph asked.
The knish suddenly tasted like ash in her mouth. Esta swallowed the bite she’d just taken, choking it down as her stomach flipped nervously, and then regarded him as blankly as she could manage. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Dolph gave her an impatient look. “I watched you today as we made the calls. ?You were listening.”
“I wasn’t—”
But he shot her a look that made her swallow her protest. “How many?” he pressed.
“Several,” she admitted finally. It had been a major part of her training, and luckily she picked them up quickly.
Dolph took another mouthful of his knish. “You didn’t think that relevant information to mention before?”
She shrugged, choosing her words carefully. “Not everyone appreciates the skill. Like you said, I was listening today. ?A lot of people see that as more of a liability than an advantage.”
He nodded. “Lucky for you, I’m not one of them.”
She blinked up at him, relieved. “You’re not?”
He shook his head. “But don’t think you can hide things from me without it costing you my trust.”
“I won’t make that mistake again,” she assured him, ducking her head and hoping he couldn’t read the lie in her words.
“See that you don’t.”
After that, they walked in silence for a while before she felt brave enough to ask the one question that had been bothering her all morning. “Why did you bring me along today?”
“In part, I wanted to see how you would react to the people I protect. There are too many who believe we should keep to our own, and they’re not willing to cross new lines. A lot of people never talk to anyone who isn’t from the village they grew up in. A lot of people are only interested in protecting their own. That’s what the Order wants. They don’t want Mageus to realize we have more in common than we have differences, because keeping us divided means their own power stays secure.
“But I also wanted you to see with your own eyes what I’m trying to do and what’s at stake if we fail.” He popped the last of his knish into his mouth and finished it before he continued. “Golde’s daughter took a liking to you.” He gestured to the flower Esta still had tucked into her hair.